Israeli Iron Dome Defense System Bought For Our American Military

Israeli Iron Dome Defense System Bought For Our American Military: It’s remarkable that America is buying weapon systems from a nation, Modern Day Israel, who is only 70 years old. The progress they have made in a short period of time is outstanding. If we continue with the BDS movement ideology we would have a major technological setback. Does the BDS Movement stand a chance anymore? Tune in now to find out.

Transcription note: As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live! Where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always doing that from a Biblical, historical, and Constitutional perspective.

We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and our founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker and President of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state legislator, national speaker, and author. We cover all kinds of topics here on while others live. You can get some of those archives at our website WallBuilders Live.com by just clicking on the archives section there and going back several months to the Monday through Wednesday programs where we have special guests on all types of topics and then those Thursday programs diving in our foundational freedoms. And Friday is what we call Good News Friday.

All of it’s available right there at WallBuilders Live.com. Encourage you to stop off at that donate button.

We are a listener supported program so the program you’re about to hear does not happen without people just like you making those contributions on the Website. We greatly appreciate you considering that today. Well, later in the program General Bob Dees will be with us right now. We’re here with David and Tim Barton.

And guys General Dees is going to talk to us about a really cool development with the iron dome. It’s a defense system that the Israelis developed that now America is actually buying from them. So pretty remarkable that we’re actually gonna be buying a weapons systems from a nation that is less than 100 years old at least the modern Israel.

Modern Day Israel

David:

Yeah. Modern day Israel 70 years old and the progress they have made in a short period of time. I mean the fact that we, in America, the number one military power in the world are now purchasing stuff from Israel.

We’ve been supplying them for decades for them to get strong but they’ve kind of blown past, and they’re amazing what they do.

Tim:

Well, even their technology. We sell them F16s are now F35s, they will take out the interior electronics of our planes that we are selling, that our military uses because our electronics are inferior to the systems they have, and they put in their own system which is more advanced electronically than our system is. So they really are pretty impressive in a lot of areas.

David:

It’s interesting because I was thinking about how really in a short period time they come so far. You know Tim and I were recently in a trip in Israel which took a bunch of WallBuilders folks over and that trip in Israel.

Israel was a desert 70 years ago, and you go through Israel now, and it’s kind of like gone through places in Oregon and Washington state and Idaho. It’s it’s lush green and so many places.

Tim:

There are places where it is very lush now there are still some desert places

David:

about the wilderness in Jericho

Tim:

Right, I mean there are still areas you look at, and you’re like, wow nothing will live here ever. And so it does have some desert feel, and actually, there’s lots of different kinds of topography around Israel, but there are some places where it is very lush and very healthy and very green where, yeah you were seeing 70 years ago they were saying that there was really none of this there.

Israel Then And Now

David:

Yeah. And there’s actually some interesting pictures I have a book of Israel showing then and now. It’s called Israel then and now. It stands on certain mountains and takes pictures and has pictures from 1878, 1880, 1900’s, World War I and shows the picture then and shows where it is now, and Israel has planted so many millions of trees across that, and they’ve come up with ways of really making it such a productive place.

Israel And Technology

So I started looking. And so what comes up when you look at Israel’s technology over just the last 10 to 15 years the things they have given the world the things they have given the world and technology. I mean then I have laser projection keyboard where that on your cell phone it projects on the table in front of you a keyboard, and you’re touching the table typing the keyboard, and it’s going through your phone as if you have a full keyboard, so laser projected keyboard.

They’re the guys that invented the flash drive. That’s Israel who did that. They’re the ones who came up with the driver early warning collision system to let drivers know when something’s come, and we have the most cars now. Many cars, they have immediate translation in all languages.

Take a pen. You run the pan it’s a laser scanner you run it across the words and whatever language you want it immediately translates into that language, let you let you hear it come back at you so you can hear it.

They have electrical wires now that transmit electricity, and the wires are only 1/1000 the thickness of a human hair. Now you mentioned human hair and break into a thousand thin parts.

They’ve got electric wires now that I mean they have the smallest video camera in the world grab this the video camera is less than a 130th second of an inch. I mean that’s that’s the thickness of a fingernail that’s pretty small. That’s pretty small. And then you get into medicine and what they’ve done.

They have robotics for spinal surgery, and paraplegics have no nerves and no sensation in the lower part of their body. They now have bionic legs for them that enable them to walk, to climb stairs to do. It’s just amazing what Israel has done. You know they came up solar panel windows.

I’ve got a long list here, and I’m going, oh my gosh you guys that want to boycott Israel. The BDS movement, Boycott divestiture, and sanction. If you quit using Israel’s products, you would be back almost in the stone ages of 20 years ago at least technology wise and science wise you’d get back up.

So Israel really has made some huge progress, and now they’re making so much progress even in the military that we are starting to buy some of the technology they provide which is filling gaps in our military that we’ve not been able to fill on our side. So really as amazing things and so we saw an article recently about bout this happening. About the U.S. buying Israel’s technology and with let’s talk to General Dees. He is a retired two-star Army general, but he helped deployed the Iron Dome defense system in Israel, and so he knows all about it.

And in addition to Bob helping with the Iron Dome, he also was in charge of the American forces over on the border of North Korea. So he knows North Korea very well.

And since Trump recently had this meeting with the press in North Korea and their summit thought that be a great perspective gift from him as well because he’s really familiar with these two things that are really the heart of two recent news stories.

So we thought Bob would be a great guy to talk to.

Rick:

As General Bob Dees, he’ll be with us when we come back from the break. Stay with us. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Red, White, Blue, and Green

Hey friends, a special event is coming to you. It’s called Red, White, Blue, and Green. It’s a stage show. It’s our opportunity to bring history to life, to bring the Constitution to life, to equip and inspire you and your family, and the people at your church and in your community, to get involved and do more. To be given true action steps on what you can do right there in your backyard to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s going to be a fun evening. We’re going to laugh and learn together and get educated. There’s gonna’ be lots of great music, and presentations, and inspirational stories. It’s called Red, White, Blue, and Green. You can make it happen right there in your hometown. We’re gonna be filming live in Thousand Oaks, California, on the evening of March 23rd, and streaming it all across the nation.

You can be the one to bring it into your community by streaming it to your church, or in your home, or even just watch it individually if you like. Go to ConstitutionCoach.com today, and you’ll find out more. ConstitutionCoach.com. The event is on March 23rd. We’re hoping you’ll participate with us and help us restore America’s Constitution.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. General Bob is back with us General, it’s been too long. Thanks for coming back on, Sir.

Bob:

Great to be here.

Iron Dome Purchase

Rick:

We got lots of questions for you. First one, right off the top is this Iron Dome part purchase. So we’re actually buying this system from the Israelis to use for our forces.

Bob:

Yes, we are. We’ve been working with the Israelis on this since 2011 and in an agreement to develop it but now a decision has been made. The U.S. is acquiring two batteries of that. You know Iron Dome is a great development by the Israelis, and our U.S. contractor Raytheon has been involved as well.

They used that way back in operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, and Iron Dome was credited with saving countless Israeli lives and was a game changer by many of the Israeli policymakers.

The net is that the Israelis had a gap in their mid-range coverage for artillery and short-range rockets. Tragically, the U.S. has had the same gap. And so this system ideally will save U.S. lives also.

Rick:

How unusual is this general? I mean do we typically, I mean seems like we develop or we have you know U.S. companies that develop and we buy from them. Have we bought from other nations very often?

Bob:

Well, I would say this just suggests that we’re buying from other from another nation even Israel is a slightly different; It’s a co-production agreement.

A U.S. defense contractor is integrally involved with Rafi El, their defense contractor. This has been sort of they’ve been walking this path for a number of years, and frankly, the Israeli and Raytheon technology won out over some of our classic General Dynamics Land Systems and others competing systems. So it’s sort of a defense acquisition competition, and this team of the U.S. and Israeli have won that piece.

A Picture of How This Works

Rick:

Give us a picture of how this works. I mean this is this is this is like watching Star Wars but not in space right. I mean this is they can literally shoot down a missile that’s coming in.

Bob:

Right. Well, really all of the Israeli systems and even the U.S. Patriot system all have the basic components. They have a tracking control radar, and these radars are incredibly sophisticated and they not only detect it, but then they track it and then they have a firing unit. In the firing unit also has some control mechanisms in it and then they have a defeat mechanism in it. In this case, for the Israelis, it’s an interceptor missile. It’s a tame air; it’s what they call it.

Interestingly, the U.S. Patriot missile and the Israeli patriot missiles cost about three million dollars a shot. Wow. The payment missile cost $100k. So you’re talking a fraction of the cost.

Interestingly, that recently the Israelis shot down a drone. A $200 drone with $3 million missile. That’s not the preferred technique, and that’s how iron dome can save not only on the operational side and save lives, but it can save dollars and save logistics cost.

Multi-layer Air Defense System

Rick:

Speaking of drones is that part of the need here? Is that just a proliferation of mechanisms like that that they pretty much in everybody’s hands and then whether or not they can be armed, you know is a whole nother question but I mean, is that part of the issue here? Is this just getting easier to get things in the air in and over our troops or whatever the situation may be?

Bob:

Well I think it is there’s a variety of threats and they keep proliferating, and it’s essential to have a comprehensive multi-layer air defense system over Israel and also over U.S. troops so in a combat zone.

So they have achieved that. It’s soup to nuts at this point in time because they go from the arrow weapon system which really reaches out and touches things at long range to David’s Sling which is in development now. David’s Sling will do essentially what the Patriot missile system does in different ways.

And then thirdly, they have the Iron Dome. So that’s all the way from long range to short range.

North Korea and Trump

Rick:

Remarkable. Well, before I let you go, General, the whole North Korea summit, how Trump has handled this, what’s your take on how he’s doing with these type of situations in general but specifically with North Korea.

Sure.

Well, I guess the way I summarized it, Rick, in a recent USA Today article was that I said probably that President Trump’s savvy diplomatic approach to the perplexing North Korea dilemma is promising and I said it’s even artful.

And so I think I concluded I said let’s give it a chance America. There are so many naysayers in the news and prognosticators, and they threw out red herring things that suggested President Trump would give away the farm and so forth.

He didn’t give away the farm. He maintained peace through strength a la Ronald Reagan with Gorbachev or President Kennedy with Khrushchev along the way. And so he showed tremendous courage to walk away and not have a deal. I noticed that CNN and others have said it was a failed summit. I think it’s anything but a failed summit. I think he has done it right and it takes patience on our part.

Rick:

Yeah. I agree. And that’s you know it seems like in today’s world of politicians where they want the easy win so they can get a quick headline and look successful whether it was successful or good for the country long term. It’s great to have somebody that is willing to walk away not care if they run those headlines of a failed summit because he’s looking at the long game and so it’s great to hear that that’s your take because you’ve been in the middle of this stuff.

I mean you commanded there along the South Korea, North Korea border you’ve you’ve kind of you know this stuff first-hand so if you feel like it’s headed the right direction he’s handled it well that’s that speaks a lot to us here at WallBuilders.

The Different Administrations

Bob:

Yeah, I definitely do. Well, there’s such contrast with prior administrations you know. The Clinton administration had the oil for food program, and so we gave four billion dollars to North Korea. I would say it was supposed to be for humanitarian aid. They rapidly diverted it to developing more weapons and missiles and things, so we’ll see how that worked. And then in this last administration, Obama was very ineffective. He said there would be consequences but he never drew the, he never followed up on the red line that he drew with North Korea. There weren’t consequences. His National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice even said that we were going to have to learn how to tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea.

And gratefully our President Trump has not followed such dangerous and failed council.

Rick:

Well, it’s good to hear and brother we sure appreciate your advice and counsel and being willing to come and share with us. I look forward to having you again soon.

Bob:

Rick, thank you so much. It’s so good to be with you and greetings to David as well.

Rick:

Well, we’re going to have a link to the USA Today article and also to your books on resiliency. Hey, before we let you go tell us about your new project.

Resilience God’s Style

Bob:

Well, we’ve we’ve branded it resilience God’s style. We’re pretty excited we’ve got to republish our initial popular resilient warriors book and study guide, updated a bit. And then we’ve produced a nine-week video series, and we are currently getting going into production on a resilience game. My vision, my heart is for families around this country, for church groups, communities to learn about this critical life skill called resilience, and I think there’s no better source than our bible for that.

And so I’ve developed a faith-based game. People can play it around their kitchen table and have fun and learn and apply these resilient skills that hold us strong through the adversities of life.

Rick:

Well, I knew about that the new DVD series I did not know you were doing a game that’s exciting to hear well.

We’ll definitely have a link to that website if people are just listening, https://resiliencegodstyle.

General, very exciting to see that coming together. Thank you so much brother, appreciate your time today.

Bob:

You too. God bless. Take care.

Rick:

Stay with us folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

This Precarious Moment Book

David:

This is David Barton. I want to let about a brand new book we have called This Precarious Moment: Six Urgent Steps That Will Save You, Your family, and Our Country. Jim Garlow and I have co-authored this book, and we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now.

Issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration, race relations, our relationship with Israel, the rising generation Millennials, and the absence of the church in the culture wars, and where American heritage is our godly heritage. We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack, and we give you both Biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference.

These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So you can grab the book. This Precarious Moment and find out what you can do to make a difference. This Precarious Moment is available at WallBuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Special thanks to General Bob Dees for joining us today on WallBuilders as well.

We’ll have a link to his website, several great books and also a study there.

In fact, guys I’m beginning to use his resilience study with our Patrick Academy scholars that are spending a few months with us. So excited to work through that as well.

Cool to have him on the program. Cool to have somebody that was that involved both with Iron Dome and right there in the demilitarized zone.

Middle Range Defense – Iron Dome

David:

You know, I had not realized until Bob said that there were really three levels of defense there.

You have your long range stuff, your short range stuff and their weakness was the middle range. And as he points out, that’s the weakness with America’s middle range kind of missile defense. And so while he was talking, I was looking stuff up, and I just looked up Iron Dome. It said that Iron Dome that’s a truck-towed mobile air defense system. So they move these missiles around. They apparently put them outside their cities.

This is short range stuff that these will intercept anything that comes from say 40 miles or less. So if a rocket or artillery shells or something is fired at civilian populations, like Jerusalem or like whatever it is, from 40 miles away, these missile systems are kind of like the Patriot missile systems, that were used in the Gulf War that will go up and intercept. At that time Saddam Hussein was firing SCUD missiles, and the Patriot go up knocked the Scud missiles out of the air before they hit the ground.

That’s what the Iron Dome does. They also had what he called David’s Sling, and by the way, I think that’s a really cool name for a missile; David’s sling. You know it’s like Goliath and David and David’s slaying and I love his euphemism he said that’s a missile that reaches out and touches things. That’s a great great way to say it

Tim:

I got a kick out of that.

David’s Sling

David:

So I look that up. That’s a missile system that will intercept missiles coming in from 200 miles away. So that’s your long range stuff that gives you several minutes to respond, but it’s that middle range that they’re concerned about.

And so that’s what they’ve now developed. And that’s what we’ve we’ve needed here in America as well. But it’s just interesting to see that our cooperation, collaboration with Israel, and I love the fact that he said it really is a co-production; is Israel and America working together on this system. That’s a great way to have it.

And is something that both of us need, will benefit both of us, we’re both great allies. It’s just there are so many positive things to this story about what’s happening with this even helping the American military defense system.

Hey friends! Rick Green here, from WallBuilders Live. What do Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Ben Shapiro, Rick Green, Tim Barton, David Barton – what do all these folks have in common other than the fact that they’re conservative commentators that defend the Constitution and educate America on the Constitution?

They’re all raving about Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. In fact, if you go to my website right now today at RickGreen.com, you can watch the video of Dennis Prager training at Front Sight, or Larry Elder, or Tim Barton, or myself out there training at Front Sight. It’s an opportunity for you to learn how to defend yourself and your family to make sure that you are ready and able to do that. It is a fantastic place to train. They train 30 to 40,000 people a year, and they’re just wonderful to work with.

And you can go with us! We’re headed back out. We’re going to have a great time out there as the WallBuilders family, and if you’re a supporter of WallBuilders, we have an amazing deal for you. It’s actually going to cost you 1/10th the normal price to attend this two-day handgun training because you’re going with us. And you’ll also get the Constitution crash course. I’ll be teaching on the Constitution, you’ll get the intellectual ammunition that you need to defend the Second Amendment and our Constitution. As well as getting physical training on how to defend yourself and your family.

And this is for everyone – guys, gals, everyone should take this class. No matter how much you’ve shot your whole life or if you’ve never touched a gun, learn how to defend your family. We’re going to be going several times throughout the year, and we would love to have you be a part of that. Check it out at RickGreen.com today to find out the dates, get all the specifics, and get all of your questions answered. Check out RickGreen.com today to join us on this Front Sight trip for both your constitutional and handgun defense training.

Our Strong Relationship with Israel

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us, David, Tim.

So I mean our relationship with Israel has really been strong from the beginning. I mean, it seems to me that you get this kind of collaboration like you were saying before the break. As when Gen. Dees was saying, when you got this kind of collaboration on a missile defense system like this, it kind of says to the world, hey these two countries are linked together we’ve tried to send that signal but this president President Trump, I think is probably stood with Israel more than frankly any president my lifetime. If that’s fair.

David:

Yeah it’s a fair thing to say, and it’s an accurate thing to say, and Israel agrees. Israel said this is the best relations they’ve had with America in the modern era.

You go back to Truman and Nixon; there were great relations. But since then and there were good relations under Reagan. But you go literally on the last 30, 35 years they’ve gone up and down.

Even presidents have been good toward Israel have wanted Israel to give up its land is as President George W. Bush did. So we have a situation now and by the way under President Obama things were, we were told by Israeli officials, that’s the worst that it’s been in Israel’s history 70-year history. That the Obama relations were, that actually America even quit selling Israel missiles first defense systems, we wouldn’t even provide them missiles for their own defense. So it’s it’s back to a very good thing now, and there’s a lot of positive things to say about the relationship between America and Israel.

Peace Through Strength

And Rick you were even mentioning how that this is taking us back to that position of peace through strength. And you mentioned Ronald Reagan. And when you did, I thought well you know it actually goes before that because George Washington in his very first State of the Union address this is what he said.

He said, to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace, And that’s peace through strength. If you have all the weapons you need, you don’t have to use them near as often. And so that’s what we’re doing here by having this middle-range system brought in.

Resiliency

And the other thing that Rick you were talking about too, and you just mentioned how you’re using the resiliency stuff with the Patriot Academy scholars, and I was just thinking back and about you know what’s a good synonym for resiliency? I mean Bob was saying that that’s a trait that every Christian needs to be aware of. What would you guess throw out as a synonym for resiliency?

Tim:

Perseverance

David:

Rick, you got one?

Rick:

Resiliency synonym for – yeah that’s the best the best one. Perseverance you’ve got the good one, Tim.

David:

While I was looking it up because I, you know, I didn’t come up with a real clear handle as far as I can. What is that? You know, where I was going there were synonyms like flexibility and but here’s here’s what it said, it says to be able to take a hit and spring back the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and revert back to the original form.

It gave certain names like toughness and flexibility, but I thought yeah that’s that’s a good description. Be able to take a hit and come back. And that is a strong Christian trait to be able to to get hit by the enemy and not get sidetracked, not get off, go off the wrong end. That resiliency stuff you know, that’s what he’s taught to the military guys for a number of years and has a trilogy of books.

But I’m really glad to see him bringing that into the Christian community as a curriculum with the video lessons and other things that he’s doing. That ability to take a hit and come back really is needed particularly now in America where there’s so much of the culture has been given over to the opposition.

To take it back, we’re gonna have to take some hits, but we just can’t let that sidetrack us or distract us. We’re gonna be able to bounce back, and so resiliency really is a good characteristic.

Resiliency Curriculum And Patriot Academy Leadership Program

Rick:

It was one that we needed every age. Certainly, these young patriot Academy students that I’m teaching do but all of us at any age. Especially challenges in the country is one of the things I like about general Dees is even with his books, he writes to specifically to warriors, he writes specifically to leaders in industry and business and specifically to just citizens and to a nation about how to be more resilient.

So great opportunity for people to learn that. We will have links to that today at the website. I really encourage people to check it out at WallBuilders.com today. Our leaders program or leaders training as a chance to go spend about two weeks with David and Tim Barton in the summer.

And now, Tim this is sick, this is 18 to 25 is that right?

Tim:

Yes, 18 to 25-year-olds. We have people coming from all different states. Last year we had more than 20 states represented, but they’ll come spend two weeks. We will do a lot of apologetics for both the Bible, for the Christian heritage of the nation, for the Constitution, for the free market – just really learning how to think critically but using original sources, original documents.

We’re not going to just use blankets and generalizations for the Founding Fathers. We’re going to say no, let’s learn who each individual was, let’s learn what they stood for. Why did they support certain things, why were they against other things? Were there certain guys that were wrong on issues and why were they wrong. We’re going to really dive into getting to know more about America; our foundation, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights things that matter in our culture.

Rick:

All right, so WallBuilders.com or WallBuilders.com. We’ll get you to find out more about that leadership training. Get signed up now, they’re going to fill up, and there will be no room if you wait until the last minute. Make sure you get signed up and have a great experience. You want your young people to be trained in this way.

Thanks for listening today folks.

More programming like this at WallBuildersLive.com and you can help make it happen by making a donation to becoming one of our listeners supporters so check out that donate button at WallBuilders.com as well. You’ve been listening to WallBuildersLive.

WALLBUILDERS LIVE! with David Barton, Tim Barton and Rick Green is a daily journey into the past to capture the ideas of the Founding Fathers of America and then apply them to the major issues of today. Featured guests will include Congressmen, Senators, and other elected officials, as well as experts, activists, authors, and commentators on a variety of issues facing America.